Stoke Council elections troubled with pre-election address problems

The Sentinel today reported how 100 houses on London Road have been caught up in an address mix-up. But it's looking like the problems aren't ending there...

Check out The Sentinel's article here: http://bit.ly/jc5WnN

Councillor Roy Naylor revealed on twitter further problems arising whilst visiting residents in Blurton today.

"Some addresses in Finstock Avenue have been placed into the New Blurton East Ward, but recently whilst delivering flyers for the Non-Aligned Candidate Nina Hulse, we noticed that these addresses appeared in the Electral Register for Blurton West & Newstead."

Follow Cllr. Naylor on twitter at http://twitter.com/BlurtonNews

_____________________________________________________________________

UPDATE MAY 3:
Cllr Naylor has updated his twitter feed:

"Just had a call from a reporter at the Sentinel Newspaper and it would appear I was correct on Saturday that about 35 homes on Finstock Avenue, Blurton, have been put in the wrong ward, they should be in the New Blurton East Ward but have been issued polling cards for Blurton West & Newstead. Apparently they can still vote but not for their wards candidates. Not Democratic at all."

And I have been kindly informed by Community Voice candidate Mike Barnes that similar issues are arising in Abbey Hulton & Townsend as well as other areas across Stoke-on-Trent.

______________________________________________________________________

Stoke-on-Trent City Council have remapped their wards ahead of next week's elections. When the list of polling station locations (see here) was revealed, many residents complained of long distances making it difficult to vote in their new ward.

Now it seems some residents will be voting for their neighbours' councillors and in effect having a zero say in who their councillor for the next 4 years will be - after all the 100 votes caught up in the mix-up on London Road could have affected the result in a big way.

A similar incident occurred in 2003, when 30 homes in Harborough, Leicestershire, were sent polling cars with the wrong wards on. However, the Returning Officer in that case was able to send correct cards before the election. Read about that incident here.

Questions are now being raised if an election held without the inclusion of the 100 London Road households will be lawful or not.

Legal challenges may be raised by candidates who are not elected if they believe the number of voters affected by the mistake would have resulted in a different election result.

The Returning Officer Paul Hackney, told The Sentinel in the above linked article "Discrepancies will be dealt with immediately after the election."

The register for this election was first published on March 1 and it is unclear where any blame lies for the mistake.

If you know of any other houses caught up in address/ward mix-ups, please let us know at stokeelect2011@live.co.uk or post a comment below.

Candidates on twitter

I've made a list of all the local election candidates I've stumbled across on twitter during the last few weeks I've been covering the elections with StokeElect2011.

I've only included candidates who have been active on twitter in recent months.

It's not a complete list as there may be more candidates on twitter who I haven't discovered yet. I'll update my list accordingly if I find anymore.

The hyperlinks should take you straight to the candidate's twitter page.

Penkhull & Stoke
Jeremy Dillon

Boothen & Oakhill
Karen Eardley

Ford Green & Smallthorne
Ian Norris
Matt Wilcox

Joiner’s Square
Alistair Watson

Broadway & Longton East
Tom Reynolds

Lightwood North & Normacot
Dan Harley

Meir Park
Abi Brown

Dresden & Florence
Mike Barnes
Shazad Hussain

Burslem Central
Alan Dutton

Baddeley, Milton & Norton
Israel Amponsah

Hanley Park & Shelton
Liat Norris

Sneyd Green
Charley Hasted

Birches Head & Central Forest
Mark Meredith

Meir Hay
Ross Ward

Please let me know if you are aware of any other twitter using candidates.

The Balance of Power

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is currently led by a four-party coalition. It's been controversial and successful in varying degrees across a whole range of subjects in the last year, especially with the implementation of budget cuts.

But where is the balance of power? Where does it really lie? Well, the truth is, exactly where the electorate results should hope (at least according to their voting...)

I have created a spreadsheet which outlines the members of committees and the cabinet and their political alleigances.

I then added a table and a couple of graphs comparing the % spread of power in the committees and cabinet against the % spread of the 60 elected councillors.

***The graphs don't seem to appear when uploaded to google docs. But the correlation is hopefully easy to read in the tables***

View the document here

A quick look at Stoke-on-Trent Council Tax

The average UK electricity bill is £1,127* and the average UK council tax bill is £1,195*.
So it's fair to say that Council Tax is one of a British household's least favourite outgoings. This makes it a very important aspect when it comes to buying a house and even choosing which area of the country to live in.

This brings the question - how good do we have it here in Stoke-on-Trent?

Well, according to government statistics, wallets in Stoke-on-Trent don't take as much of a hit as the rest of the country by a good £275 on average.

Below is a table I compiled listing council tax charges and inflation rates since 1996, when the new Unitary Authority was created.

Inflation is of course not the only factor affecting levels of council tax. Over 15 years the population in Stoke-on-Trent has changed and so has technology, changing costs of front-line services and council work. The list of factors could go on and on so bear in mind the table and graphs are just resources based on averages and national figures.

If you need to see the table and charts larger, click here: http://bit.ly/k0fonR

How do you feel about the amount of Council Tax you've paid over the years?
Is the below-average charge reflected in the value of the council's services?
How much council tax do you think people should be paying in Stoke-on-Trent?

Feel free to comment below, it's free, easy and requires no registration.

*Average electricity bill http://www.electricityprices.org.uk/average-electricity-bill/
* Average UK council tax bill http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/localgovernmentfinance/counciltax/

Map Of Confirmed/Official Royal Wedding Street Parties (April 29)

View Stoke-on-Trent Royal Wedding Street Parties in a larger map

Above is an interactive map I made on google showing where all the Council confirmed royal wedding parties will be held. So, who's going?!

Elected Councillors 1996-2010

I have compiled a spreadsheet consisting of all elected Councillors (elected at the May polls - so excluding by-elections). It was a task which I seriously underestimated.

I had to visit the City Archives and rummage around on all sorts of websites to find all the information I needed. Click the link below to open the spreadsheet.

http://bit.ly/fsJmoj

Above is a graph I knocked together also to show the trends in party popularity over the years. I've included the parties who consistently get a fair number of votes otherwise the graph would be very clunky and hard to read.

It's important to bear in mind that these numbers and graph don't represent the entire council because of the one-third electoral system uesd by many unitary authorites like Stoke-on-Trent (see my earlier blog post for further explanation). Instead they only display seats won at the specific election.

I've spent hours putting all the information together so hopefully someone out there will find it interesting!

If you have any questions or comments, it's free and anonymous to comment on this blog.

Recap: Party Election Broadcasts from the Big 3 for the May local elections

Just in case you missed their original broadcast earlier this month, I've embedded below the party election broadcasts from the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties.

Make of them what you will!

SoT Council Elections - The last 15 years of confusion

Hello all,

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a Stokie and only moved here recently. It didn't take me long to pick up the political hype of the area and it's got me hooked. Because I'm analysing the May 2011 elections - I thought it best to research a brief history of Council elections and get to grips with the system in place here.

What a headache that's caused me!

I'm writing this post to summarise my findings for the changes implemented in the last 15 years. I've also been looking more at specific ward results over the years, but this post is just about the election/councillor/wards systems.

I've used legislation.gov to find most of this information out and a bit of brain-power to work things out. If I've got something wrong, please tell me!

1995

The big reform of the Stoke-on-Trent local government system happened in 1995 when the 'Staffordshire (City of Stoke-on-Trent) (Structural and Boundary Changes) Order' was enacted.
It meant that Stoke-on-Trent would become a county in its own right and not be part of Staffordshire (in a legal sense) any long

er. This would mean a transfer of most responsibilities (excluding the police for example) to Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

This would all happen in reality on April 1 1997.
In 1996, elections would be held to elect a completely new set of councillors (although I believe they could stand to be elected again? Will be checking it out at the City Archives)

These 60 Councillors across 20 wards would then hold elections every year for one-third of the Council. In practice, it meant that the councillor in each ward with the lowest number of votes in 1996 would have their place put up for election (they could stand again for re-election) in 1998 - after two years of service.

In 1999, the councillor with the second lowest votes from back in 1996 would have their seat contested again.
And in 2000, the original most voted-for candidate in 1996 would have their seat contested.

I've put those words

into a table to make things a bit clearer on screen...
Councillor A received the most votes, B the second and C the least of the three.

As you can see, after four years, a whole new selection of councillors is possible. But remember, councillors could stand for re-election. So 'D' could in fact be 'C' for example.

2001
By this point, the previous system had proved effective in that there was no major malfunctions in the system. However, The City of Stoke-on-Trent (Electoral Changes) Order 2001 made a slight alteration as well as a few boundary shifts.

It also meant the system would restart with a whole new Council (an 'all-out' election')

The pattern would now be that there would be no two-year grace period for all three councillors and the least successful of the three would ha

ve their seat contested after 1 year.
To keep the 4-year term rule going, this would mean no election further down the time-frame as follows...

This all followed in reality with the lack of election in 2009 (mirroring 2005 because of the 4-year rule).

2009
By 2009, many had grown tired of voting every year for just one councillor. The City of Stoke-on-Trent (Scheme of Elections) Order 2009 is a very small piece of legislation which makes a big difference.

From 2011 (this election!) the "election every year by thirds" system would be abolished in favour for four-yearly all-out elections. A much simpler way of selecting a Council. As with the previous reforms, all current councillors lose their seat in may but may stand again.

2011

The Stoke-on-Trent (Electoral Changes) Order 2011 made the final update to the rules just in time for the May election. The Order changed the boundaries and number of councillors electable to each ward - the changes I'm sure you're all familiar with as they have been the subject of much media and political coverage in the local area.

Read the orders for yourself here: http://bit.ly/gmXpDT

So there you have a brief guide to how Stoke-on-Trent has had its elections for the last 15 years. Who knows how we'll be voting in 15 more to come?

Is the 'new' councillor system better?

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has been reshaped ahead of the May election in respect to wards and councillors, as many of you are already aware.

It means that the Stoke-on-Trent area will be served by 44 councillors, across 37 smaller wards.

The majority of wards will be represented by individual councillors, but a few will have two or three.

Of course, no-one can say for sure how the new system will work out because we simply don't know yet but some concerns have risen making it all the more important voters consider their candidate carefully.

The main concern appears to be - what happens in the event of a councillor (in an single-councillor ward) falling ill, or having to take a long-term break from their duties. In the worst case scenario, what happens if a lazy or incompetent councillor is elected?

In the old system, a councillor would always have a colleague in the ward to help out, so what will become of wards which aren't fully represented in whichever way?

It would be expensive to hold elections for a temporary councillor to cover someone off sick and arguably not democratic to appoint somebody not elected by the electorate...

Another issue is workloads - what if an elected councillor is also required to serve on other panels or in other roles (such as Lord Mayor). One ward may have a Councillor able to commit more or less of their time to different jobs or tasks.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council have adopted the change subject to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England recommendations.

Below are a few opinions shared with StokeElect on twitter earlier today.

"I think it's the fact that we've got them for four years that is more the issue. Get a lazy one and it will be hard work"

"does mean one councillor is going to have to be all things to all men in a lot of places..."

"all depends how active they are, 1 active councillor is far better than 3 pen pushers"

"would have preferred 100% single member (or even dual member) wards - think there are +ve & -ve for old & new system."

How often does you Councillor attend their meetings?

A table available on the Stoke-on-Trent City Council website highlights local councillors' attendance to meetings. It includes the following criteria:

Number of meetings Cllr was expected to attend
Number of meetings Cllr did attend
Number of meetings Cllr attended without expectation (i.e. for personal interest, extra research etc)

Of course, this is not the only piece of evidence that should be used to evaluate a Councillor's performance or quality of contribution to their ward. It is simply one source which can give you an idea of their attendance rates.

The table suggests 5 councillors had 100% attendance.

No Councillors failed to attend any meetings and the majority achieved over 70% attendance.

It should also be remembered some councillors serve part-time and have other work or family commitments or fallen ill.

Using the Council data, StokeElect2011 has comprised the following table to include a % attendance for each councillor with links to all the official data on attendance per Councillor as well as data regarding their apologies for absence at meetings.

Apologies for the skew-iff table. Blogger doesn't seem to agree with lots of numbers. They look in-line when constructing the post but change when published!

% Attendance Expected Attended Missed

Councillor Jean Edwards 17 29 5 24

Councillor David Sutton 27 37 10 27

Councillor Matt Wilcox 31 16 5 11

Councillor Roy Naylor 32 19 6 13

Councillor David Marfleet 33 9 3 6

Councillor Gavin Webb 33 3 1 2

Councillor Amjid Wazir 43 42 18 24

Councillor Michael Barnes 44 34 15 19

Councillor Zulfiqar Ali 50 12 6 6

Councillor Tom Reynolds 54 28 15 13

Councillor Jean Bowers 54 24 13 11

Councillor Melanie Baddeley 56 36 20 16

Councillor Margaret Barber 56 16 9 7

Councillor David Conway 58 33 19 14

Councillor Ross Irving 63 24 15 9

Councillor Bagh Ali 64 22 14 8

Councillor Sarah Hill 67 21 14 7

Councillor Pauline Joynson 67 15 10 5

Councillor Joanne Powell-Beckett 67 21 14 7

Councillor John Daniels 68 25 17 8

Councillor Michael Coleman 70 23 16 7

Councillor Mick Salih 70 23 16 7

Councillor Javid Najmi 71 34 24 10

Councillor Steven Batkin 71 14 10 4

Councillor Janine Bridges 71 14 10 4

Councillor Mark Davis 73 22 16 6

Councillor Mohammad Iqbal 73 11 8 3

Councillor Brian Ward 74 19 14 5

Councillor Joy Garner 75 53 40 13

Councillor Jeremy Dillon 76 21 16 5

Councillor Mervin Smith 78 18 14 4

Councillor Barbara Beeston 79 14 11 3

Councillor Megan Ryan 79 19 15 4

Councillor Abi Brown 80 20 16 4

Councillor Adrian Knapper 80 20 16 4

Councillor Rita Dale 82 17 14 3

Councillor Alan Rigby 83 18 15 3

Councillor Peter Kent-Baguley 83 24 20 4

Councillor Mark Wright 85 13 11 2

Councillor Randolph Conteh 86 22 19 3

Councillor Gwen Hassall 87 30 26 4

Councillor Paul Shotton 87 30 26 4

Councillor John Burgess 87 23 20 3

Councillor John Davis 88 33 29 4

Councillor Ellie Walker 89 18 16 2

Councillor Clive Brian 89 37 33 4

Councillor Terence Follows 90 21 19 2

Councillor Mick Bell 91 22 20 2

Councillor Majid Khan 93 28 26 2

Councillor Mohammed Matloob 93 14 13 1

Councillor Olwen Hamer 93 15 14 1

Councillor Kassem Al-Khatib 94 16 15 1

Councillor Duncan Walker 94 18 17 1

Councillor Hazel Lyth 95 19 18 1

Councillor Kieran Clarke 97 31 30 1

Councillor Tony Fradley 100 19 19 0

Councillor Debra Gratton 100 14 14 0

Councillor Mohammed Pervez 100 13 13 0

Councillor Ruth Rosenau 100 19 19 0

Councillor Denver Tolley 100 5 5 0

How much do Councillors cost?

We've all read about the MP's expenses scandals but do you ever wonder how much your elected Councillors cost?

Don't forget, the candidate selected for their four year term in May will be on a pay roll with travel and 'special responsibilities' subsidies. These (amongst other figures) must be published by a local authority such as Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

The figures for the year up to March 31 2010 are now available and can be read below.

In total, the basic allowance for all councillors totalled £592,970.77 for the year.

Follow the link below to see the .pdf files for Stoke-on-Trent City Council Member's Allowances page which contains the information not only for the year ending March 2010 but also the two years previous.

You'll notice the increase in basic allowance of £976.22 per councillor each year over the three year period.

"As city councillors for Stoke-on-Trent,
members receive an allowance (Basic Allowance)
for time they give to serve the community
and to cover their expenses." (Travel expense covered seperately)

Original Source: Members Allowances SoTCC

Do you think the allowance amount is justified?
Is the increase a fair reflection of the work your councillor does in your area?
Does the increase reflect the rise in the cost of living/expenses fairly?

What do you think?
Comments are free and there's no need to register.

How much are the Big 3 in London thinking about local elections?

With local elections following almost a year on from the formation of the Coalition government on a national scale, just how important are the local elections of councillors to the big 3 in London?

Many newspapers and political commentators are suggesting this will be a big test in the confidence of the coalition government and an early indication as to how far Labour has come in its big recovery since losing power.

The key factor I keep in mind however is the fact that these are local ward elections and not MP elections. Voters aren't voting on a local to national stage but on a very local stage which will (in my opinion) affect the way a lot of people approach voting. It certainly does for me.

"Local elections in England are due to take place on 5 May 2011 in:

36 Metropolitan Boroughs in England – all by thirds

49 Unitary authorities in England – 19 by thirds and 30 all-up (including Stoke-on-Trent)

194 Second-tier districts in England– 70 by thirds and 124 all-up

26 district councils in Northern Ireland – all-up

Elections to the National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland

Assembly will also take place on 5 May 2011.

The Government intends for these elections to be held alongside a referendum on voting

reform, in order to minimise the number of occasions on which people are asked to vote."

Click here for original source: Parliament briefing on local elections

Now I won't get out a calculator and them all up but that looks like a lot of councillors and elections to me!

So how important is the local election to the big national party?

With under a month to go till voting begins you'd expect some sort of coverage on the parties' websites so I had a look (in alphabetical order to show no bias of course!). As much as the subject enthuses me, I haven't all the time in the world to devote to StokeElect2011 so I've done this based solely on the home pages and direct links from the home page's articles etc.

Conservatives
The main headline of the Conservative party's website (April 9 at 1300) is (and in rather large font) 'CONSERVATIVES CONTEST 94% OF LOCAL ELECTION SEATS' with a big arrow leading to this article (click here) explaining how the Conservatives are dominating the field in local elections nationally with a nice picture of Minister Warsi looking informed and quotes from her regarding the elections in the article.

Good effort I'd say!

Labour
The Labour page only really contains one clue they're thinking about the local elections - the 'Your Voice' section at the top of the home page. You find a small paragraph confirming that Labour Councillors will be standing against coalition cuts and a 2 minute video of Ed Milliband reflecting on his school days, his Dad (you can see the family resemblance!) and talking to all sorts of people around the country. (Watch it on youtube here) It bigs up the power of the people but doesn't actually refer to local elections in any way. This gives the Labour webpage the overall impression that the elections are happening but there is no huge effort on a national level to address them.

Liberal Democrats
The first thing you notice about the Lib Dem home page is that it contains a lot more in a lot less space. Their homepage is a little more interactive with a rotating news bar at the top containing 5 lead stories - two of which refer to the AV vote system and how to join the campaign for fairer votes. There's nothing to do with local elections or councillors to be easily seen though.

Despite this, the Lib Dems are the only party who have a whole website dedicated to Stoke-on-Trent rather than a particular MP or campaign in Stoke-on-Trent. Or at least this is how it appears if you type 'Conservatives Stoke', 'Labour Stoke' and 'Lib Dems Stoke' into google.

Overall
Overall I think it's safe to say the Conservatives have clearly taken the lead when it comes to their home page reflecting local elections as a high priority. Interestingly enough, and I try to remain a political commentator only, the Conservatives point out in their article linked above that Labour has failed to field a candidate in nearly 30% of seats nationally - despite their big comeback.

But the question at the end of the day is how much does it matter?

Are voters in local elections swayed by what they read and hear about 'Party X' in the news every day on a national scale or do people shut that all away and focus on which individuals they want running their local Council?

What do you think? Comments are free below with no need to register.
Also, this article only looks at one teeny aspect of the Big 3 in London - their websites.
Other factors contribute to their attitude and portrayal to the public of course!

Location of Polling Stations

If you're not sure if your local polling station in Stoke-on-Trent has moved with the ward boundary changes this year, take a look at this .pdf document produced by the council.

It is the bottom file under the list: Related Files

Click here to follow the link!

Unfortunately it isn't ordered in a very reader-friendly way and includes rather confusing codes referring to 'descriptions of persons entitled to vote'.

Also it is not clear which of the new wards (or the previous wards) each polling station represents -especially confusing for someone who hasn't voted in Stoke-on-Trent before.

Hopefully a more understandable source will become available or more information delivered direct to the public.

Nevertheless, a good source if you want to check where the action will be (as long as you are familiar with Stoke-on-Trent geography!)

New Wards - Maps & Demographics

Follow this link here to have a nose at some demographic detail of your local ward.

City Council Ward Demographic Pages

The Stoke-on-Trent City Council website is hard to navigate a lot of the time (in my opinion) but there are some real gems to be found inside.

The link above takes you to a rather empty looking page but in fact the list on the right can take you on to view .pdf files containing the following based on data collected by the Council:

Household estimates
Population (incl. Male/Female) estimates
Age category population breakdown estimates
Household Income averages (incl. % with <£10k and >£50k)
Index of deprivation
Employment %s
Ethnicity
And socio-demographics (in other words what type of people live in which types of houses)

Fantastic for researching your local area and the sorts of people living in it.

Especially good for election candidates in understanding their areas more.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog extension of the @StokeElect2011 twitter account.

Here you'll find some extra bits and pieces from around the web as well as any material I create myself regarding the upcoming elections on May 5 2011.

Stoke-on-Trent citizens will be taking to the poll booths to vote not only on the national UK referendum about the adoption of Alternative Vote but also to elect an entire new array of councillors to the City Council.

To mix things up even more this May, ward boundaries and councillor numbers have changed resulting in a drop of total councillors but an increase in the number of wards. The result of this: smaller wards with independent councillors to represent.

There are exceptions - with 5 wards keeping the traditional two-councillor election and 1 ward having a three-councillor election.